ATG Commerce Programming Guide

An Overview of Abandoned Orders

Examine the following process flow diagram, which illustrates the various paths an order can take once created by a customer.

As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, the Abandoned Order Services module contains a collection of services and tools that enable you to detect, respond to, and report on abandoned orders and related activity, that is, activity that falls within the shaded area of the diagram above. As the diagram implies, there are several general types of orders that fall within this area:

Abandoned orders – Incomplete orders that have not been checked out by customers and instead have remained idle for a duration of time.

Reanimated orders – Previously abandoned orders that have since been modified by the customer in some way, such as adding items or changing item quantities.

Converted orders – Previously abandoned orders that have been successfully checked out by the customer.

Lost orders – Abandoned orders that have been abandoned for so long that reanimation of the order is no longer considered realistic.

Note in the diagram that the process flow is not always linear. For example, an order can be abandoned, then reanimated, then abandoned again.

The subsections that follow describe the various abandonment states, repository extensions, and repositories that are required to support these orders and the tracking of related order abandonment activity: